Neighbors in the area didn't think that anybody still lived there, according to CNN.

They thought the house was abandoned, and it looked that way.

The front door was papered with citations for the overgrown yard, and no one came and went from the address. The home was unfurnished.

But inside, Edward Brunton's body was found hanging in a closet, where it'd been since Brunton committed suicide in 2009, according to Ken Betz, a spokesman from the Montgomery County Coroner's Office. Betz said Brunton had been estranged from his friends and family, so no one ever reported him missing.

The closet apparently protected Brunton's body from decomposition, animals, and insects, leaving it in a preserved-enough state for the 12-year-old boy to discover. The boy's mother, Michelle McGrath, went into the house to take a look after her son told her what he'd found. "When I crossed the threshold of the room, is when I smelled it," McGrath said.

All middle-schoolers, this is an order to cancel any forthcoming dares.